The implementation of agreements reached between the Western powers, but essentially between the United States and Iran, is a significant element in the reduction of what we referred to in an editorial last week, as current global uncertainties. And in that context, there can be little doubt that even in the increasingly heated American atmosphere of preparation for the next presidential elections, a general consensus has emerged that the President has achieved a significant step in a gradual normalization of Western-Middle Eastern relations, contributing to the diminution of levels of instability in that area.
The Iranian initiative comes also as a useful domestic political bonus for the President as his terms of office are now becoming one of the centrepieces of discussion in the run-up to the coming presidential contest, since every candidate, but particularly those involved in the Republican nomination contest, has seemed to feel free to use his record as a weapon against whomsoever becomes the Democratic candidate.
The implementation of the agreement relating to Iran’s actual and potential nuclear capabilities has also had a significant impact on US-Middle Eastern relations, particularly those involving major powers of the area like Saudi Arabia.
From Saudi Arabia’s perspective, the implementation by Iran of the agreement, subtly enhanced by the release of Americans in captivity there, shifts opinion in favour of the Iranian leadership at a time when the new Saudi leadership is anxious to continue portraying that country as an essentially destabilizing element in the Middle East. It allows the United States to seem to assert a diplomatic posture of relative balance between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And undoubtedly this shift will be seen as diminishing the longtime portrayal of their country, by the Saudis, as America’s longtime and favoured Arab Middle Eastern ally.
The fact of the matter is, of course, that from the Americans’ perspective, the diminution of a hostile relationship between itself and Iran, allows the administration to establish a more viable relationship with that country in respect, particularly, of finding a resolution to the Syrian civil war, given the Iranians’ asserted interest in minimizing the strength of the ISIS and related forces operating there.
Clearly, the multiplicity of forces now involved in seeking to combat the ISIS uprising cannot, from the American point of view, facilitate the possibility of a resolution of the issue. And while the Iranians will undoubtedly seek to continue to portray themselves as carrying out an independent policy in that area, the diplomatic atmosphere now created between themselves and the Americans must be seen as having the potential to facilitate a more collective approach to external power intervention including in particular, Russia, with whom Iran has in recent times engaged in a relatively cooperative posture.
Observers will have noted, of course, that as significant as the outcome of the Syrian civil war is to both the US and Iran, contemporaneously in recent months both countries have been concerned with the influence of the other side of recent US-Iranian relations, this being the Western sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil.
There can be no doubt that this impediment to the sustenance of the basis of Iranian national revenue has been of substantial concern to that state, and has constituted a, if not the, significant point in the normalization of relations. The impact of the sanctions has obviously been severely damaging to the Iranian economy, in a country which, contrary to earlier times, has had to periodically resort to elections (however controlled), the central element in the revolution against the Shah, along with the use of adherence to religious doctrine as a central aspect of its legitimacy.
From the American perspective, the amelioration of relations with Iran, undoubtedly welcomed by American opinion, has come at a time when, as the campaign for the presidency has developed, the portrayal by the Republican candidates of Obama as a weak leader has not had the intended effect. Obviously the success of the undertaking, by the President, of what is sometimes called quiet diplomacy (essentially conducted on his behalf by Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Secretary of State John Kerry), has been assisted by the present events, and has in some measure reduced some of the attacks on him by the Republicans contesting selection as that party’s candidate.
This situation has, however, seemed to affect the posture of not only the Republicans, but also the stance of the apparently leading Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton who had seemed to be indicating a distancing between herself as a former Secretary of State and the President. She is already seeming to realize that in terms of attacks by the Republicans on the President’s diplomacy, if relations between the US and Iran continue to improve, specifically on the issues now prevailing in the Middle East, it will be hard not to appear to be giving the Republicans ammunition as the campaign goes on.
What would also seem to be of significance, though also somewhat unanticipated, is the rapid reduction in global oil prices, at a time when Iran will obviously be anxious to regain at least some substantial proportion of its revenue level prior to the sanctions imposed by the Western powers. This would be in consonance with its desire to re-establish a more optimal functioning of the country’s economy than at present. To what extent that will become a competitive matter between itself and Saudi Arabia, until now playing a relatively autonomous hand in this matter, is left to be seen.
